Specializing in Computer Repair, Networking, Internet Solutions, Web Designing, Hybrid App Designing and Windows Operating systems.
Andreessen Horowitz:
Analysis of ten years of cryptocurrency discussions and funding data shows repeated cycles of rising crypto activity followed by eventual “crypto winters” — People who've been in crypto for a long time view the space as evolving in cycles, alternating between periods of high activity and “crypto winters.”
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Multiple supercomputers in some EU countries were hacked this week with crypto mining malware via compromised SSH credentials; evidence suggests a single actor — Confirmed infections have been reported in the UK, Germany, and Switzerland. Another suspected infection was reported in Spain.
Tim Anderson / The Register:
A nonprofit founded by privacy advocate Max Schrems has filed a complaint against Google on behalf of an Austrian citizen, claiming Android Ad ID violates GDPR — Claims consent was neither informed, nor specific, nor free - but Google says it cannot identify a user from the ID
Mary Ann Azevedo / Crunchbase News:
Homeward, a web-based service that helps homeowners buy a new home before listing their existing home for sale, raises $20M in equity and secures $85M in debt — Homeward, an Austin-based real estate startup that aims to help people buy homes faster, announced this morning that it has secured $105 million in funding.
China Money Network:
Chinese AI company CloudWalk Technology raises ~$253M from investors including the China Internet Investment Fund and participants like ICBC and Haier Capital — CloudWalk Technology, which is known as one of the “Four AI Dragons of China” (the remaining three are SenseTime, Megvii, and Yitu) …
Aditi Shrivastava / The Economic Times:
Internal email: Indian food delivery startup Zomato to layoff 520 employees, or 13% of its workforce, and temporarily cut salaries of the rest — Employees being let go will receive half their salaries and health insurance for six months — Food delivery platform Zomato will layoff 520 employees …
Adobe Illustrator is an incredibly powerful app, but it can be difficult to navigate. With so many menus and toolbars, it’s hard to find your way around. Fortunately, it offers a huge number of keyboard shortcuts to help speed up your workflow.
In this cheat sheet we’ve compiled some of the best Illustrator shortcuts, for both Windows and Mac. They’ll help you quickly find the most important tools and panels, work more efficiently with complex documents, and access some hidden features that will get you designing faster than ever.
FREE DOWNLOAD: This cheat sheet is available as a downloadable PDF from our distribution partner, TradePub. You will have to complete a short form to access it for the first time only. Download The Adobe Illustrator Keyboard Shortcuts Cheat Sheet.
| Shortcut (Win) | Shortcut (Mac) | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Basic Shortcuts | ||
| Ctrl + N | Cmd + N | Create new document |
| Alt + Ctrl + N | Option + Cmd + N | Skip New Document dialog box |
| Shift + Ctrl + N | Shift + Cmd + N | Create document from a template |
| Ctrl + S | Cmd + S | Save document |
| Alt + Ctrl + E | Option + Cmd + E | Export document for screens |
| Alt + Shift + Ctrl + P | Option + Shift + Cmd + P | Package document |
| Ctrl + P | Cmd + P | |
| Ctrl + Z | Cmd + Z | Undo |
| Shift + Ctrl + Z | Shift + Cmd + Z | Redo |
| Ctrl + X | Cmd + X | Cut |
| Ctrl + C | Cmd + C | Copy |
| Ctrl + V | Cmd + V | Paste |
| Shift + Ctrl + B | Shift + Cmd + B | Paste in place |
| Ctrl + F | Cmd + F | Paste in front of selected item |
| Ctrl + B | Cmd + B | Paste behind selected item |
| Shift + Ctrl + P | Shift + Cmd + P | Place an existing file into document |
| Ctrl + L | Cmd + L | Add new layer |
| Alt + Ctrl + L | Option + Cmd + L | Add new layer with the New Layer dialog box |
| Alt + Click layer name | Option + Click layer name | Select all objects on a layer |
| Alt + Click Eye icon | Option + Click Eye icon | Show or hide all other layers |
| Alt + Click Lock icon | Option + Click Lock icon | Lock or unlock all other layers |
| View Shortcuts | ||
| F | F | Switch between screen modes (Normal, Full Screen, etc.) |
| Esc | Esc | Exit Full Screen mode |
| Shift + Ctrl + H | Shift + Cmd + H | Show or hide artboards |
| Ctrl + R | Cmd + R | Show or hide rulers |
| Ctrl + U | Cmd + U | Show or hide smart guides |
| Ctrl + ' | Cmd + ' | Show or hide grid |
| Shift + Ctrl + ' | Shift + Cmd + ' | Turn Snap to Grid on or off |
| Alt + Ctrl + ' | Option + Cmd + ' | Turn Snap to Point on or off |
| Ctrl + = | Cmd + = | Zoom in |
| Ctrl + - | Cmd + - | Zoom out |
| Ctrl + 0 | Cmd + 0 | Fit to window |
| Ctrl + 1 | Cmd + 1 | View actual size |
| Tool Shortcuts | ||
| Double click | Double click | View settings for selected tool |
| H | H | Hand tool |
| Spacebar | Spacebar | Use Hand tool when not entering text |
| Ctrl + Spacebar | Cmd + Spacebar | Use Hand tool while entering text |
| V | V | Selection tool |
| A | A | Direct Selection tool |
| Y | Y | Magic Wand tool |
| Q | Q | Lasso tool |
| P | P | Pen tool |
| + | + | Add anchor point |
| - | - | Delete anchor point |
| Shift + C | Shift + C | Anchor Point tool |
| Shift + ~ | Shift + ~ | Curvature tool |
| T | T | Type tool |
| Shift + T | Shift + T | Touch Type tool |
| \ | \ | Line Segment tool |
| M | M | Rectangle tool |
| L | L | Ellipse tool |
| B | B | Paintbrush tool |
| Shift + B | Shift + B | Blob Brush tool |
| N | N | Pencil tool |
| Shift + N | Shift + N | Shaper tool |
| Shift + E | Shift + E | Eraser tool |
| C | C | Scissors tool |
| R | R | Rotate tool |
| O | O | Reflect tool |
| S | S | Scale tool |
| Shift + W | Shift + W | Width tool |
| Shift + R | Shift + R | Warp tool |
| E | E | Free Transform tool |
| Shift + M | Shift + M | Shape Builder tool |
| K | K | Live Paint Bucket |
| Shift + L | Shift + L | Live Paint Bucket Selection tool |
| Shift + P | Shift + P | Perspective Grid tool |
| Shift + V | Shift + V | Perspective Selection tool |
| U | U | Mesh tool |
| G | G | Gradient tool |
| I | I | Eyedropper tool |
| W | W | Blend tool |
| Shift + S | Shift + S | Symbol Sprayer tool |
| J | J | Column Graph tool |
| Shift + O | Shift + O | Artboard tool |
| Esc | Esc | Exit Artboard tool mode |
| Shift + K | Shift + K | Slice tool |
| Z | Z | Zoom tool |
| Ctrl + 1 | Cmd + 1 | Magnify 100 percent |
| X | X | Fill |
| Shift X | Shift X | Swap fill and stroke styles |
| Selection Shortcuts | ||
| Shift + Click | Shift + Click | Select multiple objects |
| Ctrl + A | Cmd + A | Select all |
| Shift + Ctrl + A | Shift + Cmd + A | Deselect all |
| Ctrl + 6 | Cmd + 6 | Reselect |
| Ctrl + G | Cmd + G | Group objects |
| Alt + Ctrl + ] | Option + Cmd + ] | Select object above current selection |
| Alt + Ctrl + [ | Option + Cmd + [ | Select object below current selection |
| Ctrl + Double click | Cmd + Double click | Select object behind |
| Arrow keys | Arrow keys | Move selection |
| Shift + Arrow keys | Shift + Arrow keys | Move selection 10 points |
| Alt + drag | Option + drag | Duplicate selection |
| Shift + Ctrl + B | Shift + Cmd + B | Hide bounding box for selected item |
| Alt + Shift + Ctrl + 3 | Option + Shift + Cmd + 3 | Hide unselected items |
| Shift + Ctrl + O | Shift + Cmd + O | Create outlines from type |
| Editing Tools Shortcuts | ||
| Shift + Drag handlebars | Shift + Drag handlebars | Expand or shrink object proportionally |
| Spacebar + Drag | Spacebar + Drag | Move and position shape while drawing it |
| ] | ] | Increase size of brush, text, etc. |
| [ | [ | Decrease size of brush, text, etc. |
| Alt | Option | Draw shape starting from its center |
| Shift (when drawing or rotating) | Shift (when drawing or rotating) | Snap line or object to vertical, horizontal, or diagonal position |
| Ctrl + 7 | Cmd + 7 | Create clipping mask |
| Alt + Ctrl + 7 | Option + Cmd + 7 | Remove clipping mask |
| X | X | Switch between stroke and fill |
| D | D | Revert stroke and fill to default settings |
| / | / | Set no stroke or fill |
| Ctrl + / | Cmd + / | Add new fill |
| Alt + Ctrl + / | Option + Cmd + / | Add new stroke |
| Shift + Eyedropper tool | Shift + Eyedropper tool | Sample color from an image |
| Ctrl + I | Cmd + I | Check spelling |
| Panels Shortcuts | ||
| Tab | Tab | Show or hide all panels |
| Shift + F7 | Shift + F7 | Align panel |
| Shift + F6 | Shift + F6 | Appearance panel |
| Ctrl + F11 | Cmd + F11 | Attributes panel |
| F5 | F5 | Brushes panel |
| F6 | F6 | Color panel |
| Shift + F3 | Shift + F3 | Color Guide panel |
| Ctrl + F9 | Cmd + F9 | Gradient panel |
| Shift + F5 | Shift + F5 | Graphic Styles panel |
| Ctrl + F8 | Cmd + F8 | Info panel |
| F7 | F7 | Layers panel |
| Shift + Ctrl + F9 | Shift + Cmd + F9 | Pathfinder panel |
| Ctrl + F10 | Cmd + F10 | Stroke panel |
| Shift + Ctrl + F11 | Shift + Cmd + F11 | Symbols panel |
| Shift + F8 | Shift + F8 | Transform panel |
| Shift + Ctrl + F10 | Shift + Cmd + F10 | Transparency panel |
Learning the shortcuts above will help to make graphic design with Adobe Illustrator a whole lot easier. But that’s only the beginning. Check out our guide to the best free Illustrator templates, as well as these essential Illustrator tips to help you design faster.
Image Credit: NordWood Themes on Unsplash
Read the full article: The Adobe Illustrator Keyboard Shortcuts Cheat Sheet
Yes, you can learn how to dance online for free. From party moves and trending TikTok dances to classic ballroom steps, try these free websites for beginner and experienced dancers.
Online lessons are obviously not going to be as good as going to a professional dance studio. But they are effective nonetheless. Through a series of steps (no pun intended), anyone can learn how to dance online for free. And if you like the basics, many of those in this list offer paid packages for a professional online live dance class.
Social media loves dancing. Gamers love dancing. The internet loves dancing. And Bao from Learn How to Dance is here to teach you how to do the latest viral and trending dances in simple and free YouTube videos.
You can check the most popular videos, but Bao has also divided the channel into a few helpful playlists. There’s a Fortnite playlist for all the dances in the popular game. He updates the TikTok playlist most frequently so you can rock those moves on your social media. And there are tutorials for popular dance moves, hip-hop steps, and other assorted items.
The most common compliment subscribers give Bao is how much time he gives to breaking down the steps. Beginners will find it easy to learn moves from him because of how he demonstrates all angles of the body for each step and suggests easier and harder versions.
Also, like most active YouTubers, he reads the comments regularly. So if you want to learn a step he hasn’t featured yet, write a request and you might soon get a tutorial along with a shout-out.
Tap dancing is all about rhythm. It takes practice, but it’s much more accessible than others for beginners and those who consider themselves to have two left feet. Tap dancer Kathie Walling compiled some of the essential things you will need in one place at Tap Dancing Resources.
Start with the list of tap dancing lessons for all levels. Here, you will find links to several free tutorials online. Walling provides YouTube links to lessons by United Taps, as well as Shelby Kauffman’s excellent series where she breaks down each step. In fact, you can also learn about all the steps at the A-Z of tap dancing steps.
These online videos are the first stage of your tap dancing journey. You’ll also need the right music to tap along to, find surfaces and shoes that can work, warm-ups, and so on. Tap Dancing Resources has it all, along with links to instructors and schools around the world for you to tap the next step.
Ballroom Dancers looks and feels a little old, as do the videos in it. But when it comes to the classics of dancing, you don’t really need to jazz it up. When the content is top-notch, the design doesn’t matter.
The website teaches all the major steps involved in ballroom and latin dances like waltz, salsa, samba, foxtrot, rumba, cha cha, etc. Each dance and step offers a video as well a write-up.
The written part dives into the history of the moves, elaborates on the man’s part and woman’s part, and offers tips and tricks on how to gracefully execute the steps. As useful as the videos are, don’t forget to read the text.
You’ll need to sign up to access a lot of the videos, including the weekly variations. Registered users also get the printable syllabus if you’re going to stick to a routine to learn to dance. You can also view the videos on Ballroom Dancers’ YouTube, where you can easily download the videos for offline viewing.
Do you feel like you have no rhythm and two left feet? Dancer Nathan Short simplifies the whole idea of finding rhythms and grooving to them by making it a visual learning experience. He calls it Colourform, and it’s meant for absolute beginners to learn how to dance.
Here’s how it works. Short divides sound into six frequencies, from low to high. He then assigns them six colors of the spectrum. He also divides the human body into six sections: feet, knees, hips, torso, arms, and hands.
Each frequency, color, and body party forms a group, from lowest to highest. It’s really easy to follow in the video. This simple visualization will help you find the beat and rhythm of any song and dance appropriately to it.
If you’re confident with the basics of dance, try Short’s free 10-minute dance masterclass routines on YouTube. They’re beautifully shot as he teaches a group of students a few moves. You can see the variations people bring, and how a non-perfect dancer performs the same move as Short, which can be a confidence booster if you’re struggling. Plus, they also serve as free live workout classes at home to get fit.
Adults get conscious about how to dance correctly. But kids? Man, kids are uninhibited and joyful when they get to shake a leg. You can actually start them off at an early age, build up their confidence and skills.
Dance Parent 101 is all about teaching children the basics of dancing through online resources and maybe learning a thing or two along the way.
Blogger Samantha was a professional dancer and tutor. As a mom to two dancer kids, she put together this website that will help children learn dancing even in your home.
You’ll find how to build locomotive skills in toddlers, the basics of dancing for children, ballet tutorials, dancing for teens, fitness workouts for kids, and a whole lot more.
Dance Parent 101 is a repository of useful information for parents of dancers. And you know what? If your child is learning at home, why don’t you join them to pick up a few steps, get fitter, and most importantly, bond with your kid.
Dancing and music go hand in hand. Just like you can learn to dance online for free, you can also learn to play music online for free. This includes instruments like the guitar or harmonica, or you can work without equipment to learn to beatbox or sing with the help of online classes. It’s all among the musical skills you can learn online with or without instruments.
Read the full article: 5 Easy and Engaging Ways to Learn How to Dance Online for Free
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
The pandemic could accelerate consolidation in the scooter-sharing industry, as companies cut costs and lay off staff to cope with severe declines in ridership — Public transportation is on life support, as the pandemic makes people less inclined to want to cram themselves into underground metal tubes …
On Saturday, the United Launch Alliance (ULA) is targeting a liftoff time of 8:24 AM EDT (5:24 AM PDT) for one of its Atlas V rockets carrying the U.S. Space Force’s X-37B orbital test vehicle, which is a fully autonomous winged spaceplane that looks a little like a scaled down version of the Space Shuttle.
This is the sixth mission for the X-37B, though it’s the first flown under the U.S. Space Force’s supervision, since the space plane was previously operated by the Air Force before the formation of the new wing of the U.S. armed forces.
The X-37B runs various missions for the U.S., though its specific aims are actually classified. The uncrewed test vehicle spends long periods on orbit circling the Earth while conducting these missions, with its longest mission to date being a record 780 days for its flight that landed on October 27.
Stay tuned for updates, as weather conditions could mean this launch gets pushed to a backup date.
Trying to find the right app for any given area on Android is a lot like trying to order dinner at a restaurant with way too many options on the menu. How can you possibly find the right choice in such a crowded lineup? With the Google Play Store now boasting somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 gazillion titles (last I checked), it's no simple task to figure out which apps rise above the rest and provide the best possible experiences.
That's why I decided to step in and help. I've been covering Android from the start and have seen more than my fair share of incredible and not so incredible apps. From interface design to practical value, I know what to look for and how to separate the ordinary from the extraordinary. And taking the time to truly explore the full menu of options and find the cream of the crop is quite literally my job.
Jina Moore / Rest of World:
A deep dive into Sudan's 2019 internet shutdown, how telecom engineers disrupted the government's control over the internet, and the future of digital rights — How citizens, telecom employees, and activists in Sudan turned a battle for digital rights into a referendum on the government
Dozens of states across the US are pinning their hopes on contact tracing to control the spread of the coronavirus and enable regions to reopen without sparking major resurgences of the outbreak.
Alaska, California, Massachusetts, New York, and others are collectively hiring and training tens of thousands of people to interview infected patients, identify people they may have exposed, and convince everyone at risk to stay away from others for several weeks.
Contact tracing is a proven tool in containing outbreaks of highly infectious diseases. But this particular virus could pose significant challenges to tracing programs in the US, based on new studies and emerging evidence from initial efforts. Stubbornly high new infection levels in some areas, the continued shortage of tests, and American attitudes toward privacy could all hamstring the effectiveness of such programs.
The chief challenge with this coronavirus is its potential to spread exponentially: absent containment measures, every infected person on average will infect two or three others, according to most estimates (although some studies find it could be higher).
The goal of contact tracing, as well as social distancing, is to push down the number of people each infected person infects, creating an “effective reproduction number,” or Re, of 1 or less. At that point the number of new cases is flat or falling.
But contact tracers have to reach a significant portion of cases and contacts to really move those numbers.
A team in any given region would have to detect at least half of new symptomatic cases, and reach at least half the people they were in close contact with and encourage them to stay away from others, in order to reduce the transmission rate by 10% or more, according to a new model. (The work was published as a preprint on MedRxiv on May 8 but hasn’t been peer-reviewed yet.)
If they successfully detected 90% of symptomatic cases and reached 90% of their contacts—and tested all of them regardless of whether they had symptoms—it could reduce transmissions by more than 45%, the researchers found.
In other words, if social distancing in a given region had reduced infections per person from 2.6 to 1, this level of contact tracing could push it down to .55. Or the region could ease distancing measures by about half and keep infection levels constant.
“It gives us some room to be targeted and strategic in terms of the sorts of restrictions we have on business and commerce and social interactions,” says Joshua Salomon, a professor of medicine at Stanford and coauthor of the study.
Can we hit those kinds of figures? Salomon thinks it’s possible, but he adds that most of the nation doesn’t have the well-trained workers and data systems in place to achieve anything on that level yet.
The success of contact tracing will depend on how big the teams are, how many new cases develop, and how readily people respond in any given community.
Reaching 90% of contacts, for instance, will be especially difficult in states and regions still grappling with lots of new infections. Take Massachusetts, which put to work a 1,000-person contact tracing task force at the beginning of the month. But new confirmed cases in the state are still generally exceeding 1,000 daily, and nearly reached 1,700 on Thursday, so every tracer on the team will need to track down and convince some multiple of that number to stay away from others every day. While shelter-in-place rules are in effect, that multiple may be only two or three people. But as regions relax social distancing measures, the average number of contacts for infected patients could rise to closer to 20.
NPR reported that 44 states and the District of Columbia now plan to bolster their contact tracing teams, collectively increasing them from about 11,000 today to more than 66,000 in the weeks ahead.
But that’s likely not going to be enough. The National Association of County & City Health Officials estimates that US tracing efforts will require 30 professionals for every 100,000 people (or more than 98,000 people nationwide).
Only seven states have plans that would reach that target, including California, New York, and Illinois, NPR found. Only one, North Dakota, meets it currently.
A bipartisan group of prominent health experts and public officials—including Bob Kocher, a former special assistant to President Barack Obama on health policy, and former Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist—argue that the nation will need to go further than that. They called on Congress to set up a 180,000-person contact tracing workforce that would cost the federal government some $12 billion.
Technology can certainly supplement human contact tracing. Notably, smartphone apps that can inform someone who’s been in close contact with an infected person have helped nations like China and South Korea flatten the curve of their outbreaks.
But these tools need to be very widely used in order to make a meaningful difference. So there are serious doubts about how effective any of them could be in the US, given heightened cultural concerns about privacy and the fact that the government isn’t forcing people to use these apps.
A study published on May 1 in JAMA Internal Medicine, tracking the first 100 cases in Taiwan, found that people are most infectious before and within five days of the onset of symptoms. That adds to a growing body of evidence that people with minimal or no warning signs like fevers and coughs are a major vector of the disease.
That underscores the critical importance of contact tracing. The very goal is to identify people who don’t know they’re infected and encourage them to quarantine themselves before they unwittingly infect others. But it’s hard to identify and trace all the cases out there if people aren’t sick enough to know they should get tested, and it means contact tracers need to move incredibly fast to get to people before they’re already spreading the virus.
“I say you need to find people and isolate them within four days of exposure, if you’re going to make a dent,” says George Rutherford, a professor of epidemiology at the University of California, San Francisco, and principal investigator on California’s contact tracing program. “It’s probably even three.”
The potential for people to spread the disease before displaying symptoms also underscores the importance of making tests much more widely available. Given the shortages of supplies, protective equipment, trained personnel, and processing capacity, many regions are still offering tests only for people who have symptoms or are frontline health workers.
But if areas can build the capacity to test all the close contacts of infected people, even if they haven’t developed symptoms, it could increase the effectiveness of contact tracing programs by as much as 2.2 times, Salomon and his coauthors found.
That’s because if an asymptomatic person does test positive, it triggers additional efforts to contact and quarantine everyone that person may have exposed. Also, researchers suspect, people are more likely to adhere to requests to stay away from others if they know they’re infected than if they’re simply told they may have been exposed.
Last month, researchers at the Harvard Global Health Institute estimated that the US would need to conduct at least half a million tests per day to capture asymptomatic cases and safely reopen the economy. Now they think that figure is closer to 900,000. Meanwhile, the daily average over the last week has been about a third of that level, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
Successful contact tracing efforts also require people to accept calls and heed advice from complete strangers.
Unfortunately, years of robocalls and telemarketing have conditioned many Americans to ignore calls from numbers they don’t recognize. Jana De Brauwere, a program manager with the San Francisco Public Library who is working with the city’s contact tracing task force, says that at least half the people she calls simply don’t answer. Others hang up once she starts asking for personal information, like addresses and dates of birth.
UCSF’s Rutherford has said there’s an added challenge for regions with large populations of immigrants or undocumented residents, where people may be fearful of interacting or sharing information with public officials. San Francisco’s contact tracers are finding that about 40% of potentially exposed contacts are Spanish-only speakers, many of them in crowded living situations.
Even if contacts do take the call and stay on the line, there’s the separate question of whether they’ll follow the advice to get tested or voluntarily place themselves in quarantine.
De Brauwere says that all she can do is recommend these steps, and offer support to help people take them. She can connect them, for instance, with city workers who will deliver food or medicine, or even locate shelter in extreme situations.
Kocher, a fellow at the University of Southern California’s Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics, adds that we’re often asking people to miss work for several weeks. Some people can’t afford that, and some will fear losing their jobs. So if we expect people to comply, we may have to provide additional incentives, including money to pay their bills, he says.
There are other reasons to suspect these requests won’t go over well among certain people and in certain parts of the nation, particularly as public opinion about the dangerousness of the disease and the appropriateness of government interventions becomes increasingly politicized.
In a Twitter thread earlier this week, Keith Humphreys, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford, argued that public health officials are underestimating how much US attitudes toward government authority could undermine national testing and tracing programs.
Americans have already defied the orders of health officials in several prominent incidents, including assaults on store workers who asked people to wear masks, armed demonstrators protesting stay-at-home restrictions, and businesses that have reopened before their local government gave the go-ahead.
Public health orders, Humphreys notes, work only when there’s a public that will abide by them.
Wired:
Facebook's reluctance to fact-check conspiracy theories is based on an outdated “backfire” theory; experiments show fact-checks and debunkings are effective — The biggest social network in the world has the wrong idea for how to fight Covid-19 conspiracies.
Issie Lapowsky / Protocol:
John Borthwick, one of Giphy's early investors and board members, describes how the Facebook deal came about and says talks began in late March — Giphy investor John Borthwick on why the $400 million deal made sense and what this means for the company's other integrations.
Are you tired of streaming music? While it’s convenient, streaming also eats up your mobile data and can be a pain if you own lots of digital music.
If you’d like to enjoy offline music on your phone, there are plenty of great apps for this purpose. Here are the best offline music player apps for Android, some which you may not know about.
Note that many popular music streaming apps, such as Spotify and YouTube Music, offer the ability to download music for offline playback. However, we’re not going to include those here, since they’re primarily built around streaming.
You don’t have to pay for a great listening experience. Let’s look at the best free music player apps for Android first.
At first glance, AIMP looks a bit simplistic for a music player. Flat interface designs are currently popular, but AIMP’s approach feels a bit empty. This could be the entire point, though. This app is straightforward: it plays your music and doesn’t mess around with distractions.
It handles nearly all audio file types—including lossy and lossless formats—and comes with a 29-band equalizer, which is rare to see in music players. It can also mix multi-channel files to stereo and/or mono. Overall, if you can get past the interface, it’s a solid choice that won’t let you down.
Download: AIMP (Free)
jetAudio HD offers both free and premium versions of its Android music player. However, you get so much in the free version that most users won’t need to upgrade. The only downside is that the free version is supported by ads, but they aren’t intrusive.
Here’s what you get: a 10-band equalizer with 32 presets, lossy and lossless support, effects like reverb and x-bass, playback speed control, automatic gain control, and more.
The Plus version comes with a 20-band equalizer, built-in tag editor, over a dozen widgets, and a few other convenience features.
Download: jetAudio HD Music Player (Free, in-app purchases available) | jetAudio HD Music Player Plus ($3.99)
Rocket Music Player has been around for a while and has come a long way since its inception. The developers fixed a lot of bugs, improved performance, and expanded the feature set.
For free, you get a 10-band equalizer with several presets, over 30 themes, a built-in tag editor, Chromecast support, a sleep timer, a nifty playlist manager, and even support for podcasts.
Get the premium app to unlock gapless playback, replay gain, crossfading, tag editing, expanded support for audio formats, and more.
Download: Rocket Music Player (Free, in-app purchases available) | Rocket Player Premium Audio ($3.49)
Phonograph is a great-looking music player app. This is mainly because of the many built-in theme color sets; the interface colors also dynamically change to match the content on-screen.
It’s pretty standard as far as features go, so don’t expect a lot of bells and whistles. But if you just want a simple listening experience that never gets in your way, Phonograph may be the music player app for you.
Download: Phonograph Music Player (Free, in-app purchases available)
If you aren’t satisfied with the lighter options discussed so far, we recommend giving Pixel Player a try. It’s not as well-known, but it’s still pretty great.
While Pixel only supports basic file formats, it has a five-band equalizer with bass boost, gapless playback, a built-in tag editor, and a few options for customization, such as themes and colors. Most notably, Pixel Player can analyze what you listen to and suggest more music that matches your tastes.
Pixel+ Music Player is also available. This removes ads and unlocks all features.
Download: Pixel Player (Free) | Pixel+ ($1.99)
What makes Impulse Music Player different? It’s designed as a gesture-controlled music player, making it perfect for any situation where you’re preoccupied—such as when cooking or driving.
In addition to gesture controls, Impulse Music Player supports a number of useful features: five-band equalizer with bass boost and virtualizer, gapless playback, crossfade, metadata editing, automatic album art downloads, and more.
This music player is no gimmick; it’s highly functional and definitely worth giving a try. Note that for some reason, the free version of the app is listed as “Music Player” on Google Play. The Pro version is called Impulse; both are developed by Appmetric.
Download: Impulse Music Player (Free) | Impulse Music Player Pro ($1.99)
Intuitive and lightweight are the distinctions that Shuttle Music Player enjoys over most other music apps. It feels smooth and runs well on older devices. While there isn’t anything distinctive about the interface, it’s easy enough to use.
Free features include a six-band equalizer with bass boost, gapless playback, several theme options, a sleep timer, and a few customizable widgets.
Shuttle+ Player grants a few extra features: a built-in tag editor, folder browsing, Chromecast support, and extra themes.
Download: Shuttle Music Player (Free, in-app purchases available) | Shuttle+ ($1.49)
BlackPlayer is the best free music player we’ve ever used. It’s clean, modern, lovely on the eyes, easy to navigate, and packed with features. You get a five-band equalizer, gapless playback, scrobbling, and sleep timer.
A premium version, BlackPlayer EX, has extra themes, fonts, extra settings to tweak, more ways to customize your experience, a visualizer, better sorting, and a first taste of all future features. For just a few dollars, it’s well worth it.
Download: BlackPlayer (Free) | BlackPlayer EX ($3.59)
MediaMonkey is a great app for offline listening. It scans your local storage for any music before adding it to the library, so after a quick set-up, you should be good to go. It plays a wide variety of file formats, both lossy and lossless.
The app has the usual features you’d expect from an offline music player: track editing functions, EQ, multiple navigation modes, and even a sleep timer.
MediaMonkey Pro allows you to sync via Windows. You can even set up your home computer as a music server, which the mobile app can stream from. Do this at home and you won’t eat up any of your mobile data, as it works over your Wi-Fi network.
Download: MediaMonkey (Free, in-app purchases available) | MediaMonkey Pro ($4.99)
Like most of the apps here, PlayerPro has all the standard premium music player features. Choosing thus comes down to the interface. While most non-Material apps are ugly, PlayerPro’s unique design is both attractive and satisfying to use.
Special convenience features include importing music history and ratings from desktop music players, custom smart playlists, voice search, and free plugins.
Download: PlayerPro Free (Free) | PlayerPro ($3.99)
If you’re using an older device with outdated hardware, a lot of modern apps may frustrate you with poor performance. Pulsar strikes the perfect balance between a gorgeous appearance and lightweight performance.
It comes at a price—a lack of big advanced features—but that doesn’t mean Pulsar is barebones. You still get smart playlists, fast search, gapless playback, and a built-in tag editor that works quite well. For the five-band equalizer, bass booster, and reverb features, you’ll need to upgrade to Pulsar Pro.
Download: Pulsar (Free) | Pulsar Pro ($2.99)
While many free apps offer paid upgrades, a truly free app can be used indefinitely without upgrading. The following apps all require payment to use, aside from free trials.
n7player has a beautifully sleek interface. At this price point where all competing apps pretty much have the same feature set, the interface could be the one deciding factor. And for that, n7player makes a solid case.
The 10-band equalizer, volume normalization, and gapless playback are all great, but n7player’s real selling point is its nuanced approach to organizing your library. Nothing is ever more than a few taps away.
Download: n7player ($3.49, in-app purchases available)
Despite its outdated appearance, Neutron Player is one of the best music players available. If you’re an audiophile, you’ll immediately recognize that the audio from this app is of utmost quality.
And that’s what distinguishes Neutron Player: it’s truly the music player for audiophiles. You’ll need to connect your device to a proper set of speakers to hear the difference, of course. It also comes with all the standard premium features you’d expect.
Download: Neutron Player ($6.99)
Poweramp’s free trial has over a million reviews, which speaks to its popularity. The free trial lasts for 15 days, after which you’ll need to upgrade.
Poweramp has everything you’d need in an advanced music player: 10-band equalizer, gapless playback, crossfade, replay gain, a built-in tag editor, fast library scan, along with some other nice-to-haves like dynamic queues.
While the app may not be luxurious, it’s reliable.
Download: Poweramp (Free trial) | Poweramp Full Version Unlocker ($4.99)
GoneMAD Player is the perfect music app if you love tinkering and customizing every little detail to your heart’s content. It has a built-in theme builder and over 250 options that you can tweak. Or choose from over 1,000 preset themes if you don’t want to tweak it yourself.
Other notable features, on top of the standard premium ones, include an optimized media library that supports 50,000+ songs, two shuffle modes, custom actions on queue completion, custom gestures, and multi-window support on some devices.
Download: GoneMAD Player (Free trial) | GoneMAD Unlocker ($3.99)
Not everyone wants to Spotify their music collection. Streaming music can be convenient, but listening to offline music is more reliable and doesn’t use data.
AIMP and Pixel Player are two of our favorite music apps, but you can’t go wrong with any of the ones here. And if you really like an app, don’t hesitate to spend a few dollars to upgrade.
If you want to improve the sound of your music, check out the best volume and sound booster apps for Android.
Read the full article: The 15 Best Offline Music Player Apps for Android
